Released from prison on parole, John Bradley plans to live alone quietly in a cabin in the country.
He is visited there by the sheriff's daughter, Helen Grant, on whose account he had got into a fight and accidentally killed a man in the past.
While he is trying to persuade her to leave, a beautiful disheveled woman in evening dress bursts in.
This is Louise Loring, who has run away on foot from her rich "protector", Tony Robson.
Meanwhile, Robson has accused Louise of theft in order to trace her, and then tries to persuade her to go back to him.